In the very hour when this thought came to him, he rose without a pang to turn the great historical composition, from which he had once hoped so much, with its face to the wall, and set himself to finish an unpretending little "Study" of a cottage courtyard, which he was certain of selling to a picture-dealing friend.

The first approach to happiness which he had known for a long, long time past, was on the evening of that day, when he went upstairs to sit with Lavinia; and, keeping secret his purpose of the morning, made the sick woman smile in spite of her sufferings, by asking her how she should like to have her room furnished, if she were the lady of a great lord, instead of being only the wife of Valentine Blyth.
Then came the happy day when the secret was revealed, and afterwards the pleasant years when poor Mrs.Blyth's most splendid visions of luxury were all gradually realized through her husband's exertions in his profession.

But for his wife's influence, Valentine would have been in danger of abandoning high Art and Classical Landscape altogether, for cheap portrait-painting, cheap copying, and cheap studies of Still Life.
But Mrs.Blyth, bedridden as she was, contrived to preserve all her old influence over the labors of the Studio, and would ask for nothing new, and receive nothing new, in her room, except on condition that her husband was to paint at least one picture of High Art every year, for the sake (as she proudly said) of "asserting his intellect and his reputation in the eyes of the public." Accordingly, Mr.Blyth's time was pretty equally divided between the production of great unsaleable "compositions," which were always hung near the ceiling in the Exhibition, and of small marketable commodities, which were as invariably hung near the floor.
Valentine's average earnings from his art, though humble enough in amount, amply sufficed to fulfill the affectionate purpose for which, to the last farthing, they were rigorously set aside.

"Lavvie's Drawing-Room" (this was Mr.Blyth's name for his wife's bed-room) really looked as bright and beautiful as any royal chamber in the universe.

The rarest flowers, the prettiest gardens under glass, bowls with gold and silver fish in them, a small aviary of birds, an Aeolian harp to put on the window-sill in summertime, some of Valentine's best drawings from the old masters, prettily-framed proof-impressions of engravings done by Mrs.Blyth's father, curtains and hangings of the tenderest color and texture, inlaid tables, and delicately-carved book-cases, were among the different objects of refinement and beauty which, in the course of years, Mr.Blyth's industry had enabled him to accumulate for his wife's pleasure.